Westboro among communities asking for time to prepare for legal marijuana use

WESTBORO 
With the medical marijuana law scheduled to go into effect Tuesday, some communities are asking the state to delay implementing it for six months to allow time for the state to create guidelines and regulations regarding the dispensing and use of marijuana.

Among those communities is Westboro, where selectmen earlier this month voted to send a letter to the state asking for the delay. Town officials said that asking for a delay was not a sign they were against medical marijuana, but that they supported the state adopting proper regulations and guidelines to make the law a success for those who need it.

The medical marijuana law was passed by voters in the November election. Although a doctor will be able to write a prescription for medical marijuana for a patient as early as next week, the state Department of Public Health has until April to set guidelines or regulations for the dispensing and use of that marijuana.

With a prescription in hand, patients can begin growing marijuana at home.

The law allows for 35 dispensaries to be established, with at least one per county.

Westboro is one of several communities following the lead of the Sandwich Board of Selectmen and the Massachusetts Municipal Association. The MMA has called for a six-month delay of the law's effective date to allow cities and towns time to update local zoning codes and create regulations to ensure that the law does not create adverse effects in communities.

“We believe that this is important to give communities time to be able to put in place local zoning or ordinance changes that they wish to put in place,” Geoffrey Beckwith, MMA executive director, said Friday. “We believe that communities all throughout the state would benefit from having more time — especially towns because town meetings won't be coming up for two, three or four more months, and if the law is going into effect during that time, then there potentially could be some significant issues with the siting of those facilities, and those communities could prefer those facilities to be elsewhere or not in their communities at all.”

Other towns that have written the state urging a delay include Mashpee, Dedham, Wrentham, Norwood, Walpole and Stoughton.

Meanwhile, the Westboro Planning Board is also considering a ban or strict zoning regulations regarding dispensaries.

Lester Hensley, Planning Board chairman, said it is his board's role to plan, not react. Given that, he is being guided by the “precautionary principle” that allows for public policy to be made in a situation where there is no consensus on the evidence on either side of the issue.

Mr. Hensley said the ballot question was clear that medical marijuana would be made available to people with specific medical conditions for which there is no other relief. He added that it is safe to assume that when people were voting on the article, it was assumed that medical marijuana would be available in a way that would not have an adverse impact on public health and safety.

“It warrants giving the DPH more time to make sure the regulations and intent is what the voters voted for,” Mr. Hensley said.

“The people were promised by proponents of the ballot question that this would be among the most tightly regulated medical marijuana programs in the country,” Mr. Hensley said. “It seems to me an appropriate and responsible position of local planning boards, school committees, departments of health, police departments and boards of selectmen that their intention be that adverse public health and safety consequences related to the passage of this law be prevented or minimized, in the event that the state law proves not to adequately regulate this issue.”

Mr. Hensley also said there were many “undefined or loosely defined” aspects of the law that need to be addressed by the DPH.

“It has been left to the state DPH to better define the law, but in a 120-day time frame that seems hardly realistic, particularly given the burdens the DPH has been under of late in respect to the state crime lab and the handling of the NECC (New England Compounding Center) issue,” Mr. Hensley said. “Again in this respect, from a precautionary perspective, it seems prudent for towns to define for themselves a position from which to address this use in the event that the DPH is unable to act in time.”